2023 Friends Rumours, Leaks, Information And Discussion

[Lyichir]

54 minutes ago, jonwil said:

The Moana pig may be considered a "licensed part"

 

Beyond that, I think it's fairly uncommon for Lego Friends animals to be used for inanimate objects or sculptures. The only instance of it I can remember is the unprinted penguin used in last year's Chinese New Year Ice Festival. Making the pig into a piggy bank would also require the back to be printed—I'm not sure Pua there is designed to have that as a printable surface. And even if you did that... would a non-functional piggy bank be that exciting a feature to justify the recolor/print?

Also... how much do kids even still use piggy banks? And would be appropriate for these modern, teen-aged Lego Friends? In one of the Organic Grocery Store pictures Autumn is shown checking out using a mobile phone to pay, which makes the idea of hoarding coins in a ceramic piggy bank feel rather quaint by comparison.

[Lemerbrix]

18 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Beyond that, I think it's fairly uncommon for Lego Friends animals to be used for inanimate objects or sculptures. The only instance of it I can remember is the unprinted penguin used in last year's Chinese New Year Ice Festival. Making the pig into a piggy bank would also require the back to be printed—I'm not sure Pua there is designed to have that as a printable surface. And even if you did that... would a non-functional piggy bank be that exciting a feature to justify the recolor/print?

Also... how much do kids even still use piggy banks? And would be appropriate for these modern, teen-aged Lego Friends? In one of the Organic Grocery Store pictures Autumn is shown checking out using a mobile phone to pay, which makes the idea of hoarding coins in a ceramic piggy bank feel rather quaint by comparison.

Well, at least Lego is catching up with the times

[The Island Chronicles]

1 hour ago, jonwil said:

The Moana pig may be considered a "licensed part"

 

Pua? Yeah he's licensed. He has to be if it looks in anyway identical to the pig in Moana. 

[Killian]

1 hour ago, jonwil said:

The Moana pig may be considered a "licensed part"

 

The 'Bruni' animal (6380362) from some of Lego's Disney Princess Frozen 2 sets is in several 2023 Lego Friends sets in a different colour to represent Liann's pet Lizard, so it seems they can use the Disney animals in other themes? However, they did design a new Racoon for Friends rather than recolour the pre-existing Lego Disney Racoon (6134411) so I don't know what the rules are with licenced character designs.

[Killian]

12 hours ago, Lyichir said:

how much do kids even still use piggy banks? And would be appropriate for these modern, teen-aged Lego Friends? 

These teenagers have done a lot of little kid activities over the years in various sets. Probably so the target demographic can relate. Emma still buys toys, for example, (set 41409).  But Lego's always been inconsistent with the OG girls.. they attend school, they own businesses, they drive, they believe in Santa, they travel the world without chaperones, they have huge disposable incomes, they have to work low level service jobs, they live with parents, they live independently from parents... Their circumstances and interests vary wildly from set to set. I suppose one good thing (well, there are many amazing things) about the 2023 reboot is that it's established they're all grown up and are of an age where some of them can have teenage children.

Looking at the 2023 Friends sets, the new generation are still in school, but are of an age where they can drive, since only one of the vehicle sets comes with an adult; and so far they're all doing reasonably teenage-ish activities. You can see Lego's push for more realistic representation of today's youth with an emphasis that most of the new friends spend a lot of time using electronic devices. So yeah, I can see that there may be less emphasis on young kid activities like saving in a piggy bank.

Studies have shown that young kids are drawn to toys that show older kids using the toy on it's packaging, kind of a "hey if this sophisticated older kid likes this toy, then it must be good" mentality. So having the new friends doing older kid stuff like streaming etc will probably be attractive to kids wanting to explore those possibilities through pretend play.

I would have thought that the Toy Story franchise would have boosted piggy bank sales, but I have no idea if they are particularly used by the TikTok generation nowadays? I tend to avoid children where possible, don't want sticky hands on my Lego.

[Lemerbrix]

A bit off topic, but does anyone know the embargo date for the friends sets?

[Killian]

6 hours ago, Lemerbrix said:

A bit off topic, but does anyone know the embargo date for the friends sets?

I've not seen any videos online of LAN members even receiving 2023 Friends sets yet. But there's plenty of videos of them receiving Ninjago Core, City and Monkie Kid 2023 sets.

[Lemerbrix]

5 hours ago, Killian said:

I've not seen any videos online of LAN members even receiving 2023 Friends sets yet. But there's plenty of videos of them receiving Ninjago Core, City and Monkie Kid 2023 sets.

I know bricks by mind got them

[Maple]

On 12/14/2022 at 4:39 PM, Lyichir said:

Also... how much do kids even still use piggy banks? And would be appropriate for these modern, teen-aged Lego Friends? 

Modern day teenagers are using Polaroid cameras. Why? What's the point when you have a smart phone? They still use them.

[The Island Chronicles]

On 12/15/2022 at 10:33 PM, Maple said:

Modern day teenagers are using Polaroid cameras. Why? What's the point when you have a smart phone? They still use them.

Speaking of which, lets be honest. Friends now feels like it's more geared towards teen girls now than little girls. Just the whole aesthetic of them doing teen girl things such as being on their phones, going to the mall, driving and I think some of them are in relationships. 

[Aanchir]

24 minutes ago, Poodabricks said:

Speaking of which, lets be honest. Friends now feels like it's more geared towards teen girls now than little girls. Just the whole aesthetic of them doing teen girl things such as being on their phones, going to the mall, driving and I think some of them are in relationships. 

I mean, it's always had that stuff, despite being aimed at a preteen audience. This is because young kids tend to find that sort of "teen stuff" cool and aspirational. A lot of boy-oriented themes like LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Hidden Side likewise focus on teenage protagonists, despite being aimed at more of a preteen audience.

[Killian]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

I mean, it's always had that stuff, despite being aimed at a preteen audience. This is because young kids tend to find that sort of "teen stuff" cool and aspirational. A lot of boy-oriented themes like LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Hidden Side likewise focus on teenage protagonists, despite being aimed at more of a preteen audience.

It feels like it's getting increasingly harder to find an adventure themed franchise that doesn't have teenage protagonists. apparently you can't save the world if you're 20 or older

[Lyichir]

18 minutes ago, Killian said:

It feels like it's getting increasingly harder to find an adventure themed franchise that doesn't have teenage protagonists. apparently you can't save the world if you're 20 or older

Well, with kid-targeted "slice of life" franchises like Friends in particular it makes a certain degree of sense. Teens are relatable to younger kids and have a lot of similar responsibilities—they go to school, they do sports, etc.—but also get to do more "adult" things like having jobs and driving various sorts of vehicles. You get the best of both worlds and can appeal to younger and older kids alike.

[The Island Chronicles]

3 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I mean, it's always had that stuff, despite being aimed at a preteen audience. This is because young kids tend to find that sort of "teen stuff" cool and aspirational. A lot of boy-oriented themes like LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Hidden Side likewise focus on teenage protagonists, despite being aimed at more of a preteen audience.

Yeah that is true! Ninjago was full blown inspired by teen anime. Hands down! 

[TeriXeri]

I think LEGO in-house themes being a bit more light hearted and teen character based is fine, especially when LEGO keeps churning out sets from franchises like Marvel, Star Wars and DC, clearly established characters that are mostly 20+, outside of some of the kid's cartoon variants like Spidey and Friends

And for City, the main characters were clearly older then teens as well back in the "Duke Detain" era of LCA, plenty of characters with beards, mustaches and stubble, or wrinkle type faces.

Castle, Adventurers and Pirates clearly had older characters as well, many mustaches and beards.

Then that leaves themes like Friends, Elves, Nexo and Hidden Side for being late teens-early 20s.

 

Purely speaking the "age" of the characters here, not the set age on the box, I mean, Duplo Batman had sets that were 2+.

Edited December 18, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Killian]

19 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Well, with kid-targeted "slice of life" franchises like Friends in particular it makes a certain degree of sense. Teens are relatable to younger kids and have a lot of similar responsibilities—they go to school, they do sports, etc.—but also get to do more "adult" things like having jobs and driving various sorts of vehicles. You get the best of both worlds and can appeal to younger and older kids alike.

I once had it explained to me that apparently one reason why so many action shows, cartoons and anime series are based around school children, is because the experience of attending school is almost universally relatable in parts of the world where people watch TV. Not everyone will have similar careers and family experiences, but most people have attended school.

[danth]

On 12/18/2022 at 9:15 AM, Killian said:

I once had it explained to me that apparently one reason why so many action shows, cartoons and anime series are based around school children, is because the experience of attending school is almost universally relatable in parts of the world where people watch TV. Not everyone will have similar careers and family experiences, but most people have attended school.

What's funny is that NONE of the popular cartoons when I grew up had anything to do with school, and if they did, we would have hated it. I mean, school sucked. Kids wanted an escape. And we wanted to be adults and do adult things...we wanted to be He-man, not some twerp kid in a school uniform.

I wonder how much Harry Potter is to blame for more recent trends.

Edited December 19, 2022 by danth

[Killian]

4 hours ago, danth said:

I wonder how much Harry Potter is to blame for more recent trends.

Yeah, we live in a society where everyone identifies as a Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff etc. I'm like "Um no; you're 45 years old, nobody believes you're a school child" 

[strangely]

9 hours ago, danth said:

What's funny is that NONE of the popular cartoons when I grew up had anything to do with school, and if they did, we would have hated it. I mean, school sucked. Kids wanted an escape. And we wanted to be adults and do adult things...we wanted to be He-man, not some twerp kid in a school uniform.

I wonder how much Harry Potter is to blame for more recent trends.

I mean, I definitely think Harry Potter contributed to the popularization of the boarding school scenario, but I don't think it's to blame for this.

I do think the shared experience of school and relatability is part of the popularity of the setting, but I also think school can be a rich setting for escapist content. For example school can be an escape from family, and it can be where you can start developing your identity outside of the family unit. Being a tween/teen in school can mean newfound independence, new experiences, more complex relationships. It's the start of growing into adulthood without having to be totally responsible for yourself. I think as a child these concepts can make for a compelling narrative, school can be just as much of an escape for a kid as anything else. And when you look at visual media history you can see this slice of life school adventures escapism being popular as far back as the 30's and 40's with movie serials like Andy Hardy or the Teen Agers.

I think at this point it's just kind of trend that comes and goes and right now it's in.

Edited December 20, 2022 by strangely

[jonwil]

Quite a few popular cartoons that fit the genre of teenagers/young adults trying to be the best in some contest. Look at Beyblade or Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh or Bakugan for example.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lemerbrix]

11 hours ago, strangely said:

I mean, I definitely think Harry Potter contributed to the popularization of the boarding school scenario, but I don't think it's to blame for this.

I do think the shared experience of school and relatability is part of the popularity of the setting, but I also think school can be a rich setting for escapist content. For example school can be an escape from family, and it can be where you can start developing your identity outside of the family unit. Being a tween/teen in school can mean newfound independence, new experiences, more complex relationships. It's the start of growing into adulthood without having to be totally responsible for yourself. I think as a child these concepts can make for a compelling narrative, school can be just as much of an escape for a kid as anything else. And when you look at visual media history you can see this slice of life school adventures escapism being popular as far back as the 30's and 40's with movie serials like Andy Hardy or the Teen Agers.

I think at this point it's just kind of trend that comes and goes and right now it's in.

Where’s our “kid with depression and anxiety because of school” character 

also, does the Main Street building connect wit downtown flower and design stores?

[TeriXeri]

6 minutes ago, Lemerbrix said:

also, does the Main Street building connect wit downtown flower and design stores?

They do look compatible, there's a 1x8 technic brick (7 holes) on both sets, with a 8 stud tiled sidewalk in the same color on both sets.

 

[Lemerbrix]

10 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

They do look compatible, there's a 1x8 technic brick (7 holes) on both sets, with a 8 stud tiled sidewalk in the same color on both sets.

 

Thanks, best to know before I flush $310 down the drain 

[TeriXeri]

22 minutes ago, Lemerbrix said:

Thanks, best to know before I flush $310 down the drain 

I don't have the main street myself but instructions do help showing where the connection points are : 

Book shop https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/6400026.pdf 8x16 building on 16x16 plate

Barber shop https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/6400015.pdf 8x16 building on 16x16 plate

Corner shop https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/6400022.pdf  12x12 building on 16x16 plate

The corner shop is the only building that works a bit different due to the building using 12x12 out of the 16x16, so the sidewalk is only 4 stud instead of 8.

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Maple]

They are LEGO System so don't they all connect? 

If you are lucky to have a Costco, the Main Street is $60 instead of $160. Also the corner in it is barely compatible with the other pieces of the set. It's design s strange.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Maple